Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Hello my beloved family and friends!
So this week was a much
better week. I still wasn't able to go out due to still being sick with
body pains until Wednesday, but right after i recovered we went out and really
got stuff done.

So we visited John and Simmy this week and we invited them
to be baptized. Once again we brought Frank and Cedrick and they were
really helpful again. So John immediately said yes. Simmy said he
would answer us on Sunday, but he actually answered us on Saturday when we
visited him and said yes! So we committed them to be baptized on this Saturday
the 29th!!!! So it is getting closer and closer to their date and we have to
just finish teaching them a few things this week and get them interviewed and then
proceed with the service on Saturday! Elder Bunga and I are really excited for
this weekend. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and they follow through
with this commitment. So in our mission we have a rule that investigators
have to come to church 3 weeks in a row before they can be eligible to be
baptized. So this Sunday we weren't seeing them at church yet in the
middle of sacrament meeting. So knowing how important these guys are, we
took Cedrick and left the middle of sacrament meeting and went and picked them
up and brought them to church just in time. So they are still eligible to
baptized. But it was great that they were still able to come at the last
minute. They had woken up late that morning, but we still got them to sacrament
meeting.

This week we also finally got another appointment with
Kishore and since he had been to church three weeks in a row, we were thinking
to also have him be baptized on the 29th but when we went to his house, he
didn't answer the door or his phone so we were unable to see him so that was
quite disappointing. Stephen (Cedrick's friend) came to church this after we
committed him to come. So that was really great to have him there as
well. We also have a new investigator that Elder Bunga met last
Sunday when he went with another Elder while i was sick. His name is
David and i guess he is really interested so hopefully we can meet him this
week and teach him. We also met some of Cedrick's friends in an area so
we are planning to go to that area and do some finding there.

So our highlight of the week was definitely committing John
and Simmy to baptism, so I have been really praying so hard to have them go
through with this because we have missed out on some baptisms and that has been
really disappointing so we have been really excited about these two guys.
They are very awesome guys. We also got a really good referral this week and this girl
lives next to the Pidugu family and she is already committed to be baptized
December 21 and is really interested.

So yes I am feeling better this week and no i didn't have
the fever come back after it went away. About the transfers....apparently
transfers with us and a couple other Elders still won't happen until middle of
December. No more concerns yet about the RSS, but i definitely agree about
getting sick. While it was awful, i think it really was made to happen by
God because it happened just after this and it made me sick enough to stay in
for a week+.

Yes, we actually can tract. We have done some door
knocking. There are just certain areas that we don't do that in because
they are Muslim areas. We don't teach Muslims here. Most of our
teachings though has been to Christians. We have taught a couple of
Hindus, but it is very difficult to get them to just believe in Christ.
Most of them have no problem accepting Jesus Christ, but then they believe in
both Christ and their Hindu Gods so it is difficult for sure.

Oh hey mom, can you send me a recent picture this week of you next to Trena. When Elder Bunga found out that you have a twin, he wanted to see a picture of you guys:) Sounds like Tyler is getting bigger and harder to handle
these days but i hope he is being happy. The movie was good huh? I'm a little disappointed i missed
it;) and I am glad you liked the Indian food. The food here is pretty
dang good. The only thing though is like all we eat is rice haha.

Dad: Better get working out some so you handle Ty huh?
Sounds like Mountain View had a really good year which is really surprising but
that is awesome! Great achievement for them to make it to the state
final. BSU on a roll now? That's great! Harsin a good coach? BSU bball
lost to Wisconsin? did Wisconsin have that big center still? The NBA seems so
weird these days...Thunder doing bad, i heard the Cavs aren't very good
either...Dang Alabama back to number 1....lame....same old same old with that
haha. KD and westbrook out for a while still...dang it. Giants are
terrible again i guess. That means next season Manning and Coughlin will
be on the hot seat and they will win the Super Bowl;) Yeah i have played ball
the last two weeks and this week i did with Cedrick, Stephen, Christian and
Frank, the African brothers and it was pretty fun. They aren't very good
but it was still fun.

So Caleb got accepted to Utah State!!! He rarely emails me
but he did last week and showed me his acceptance letter so i am really excited
for/proud of him. Maybe when i get home we will be able to hang out
together. Please talk to Aaron for me, tell him i am teaching
a lot of Africans and to check out my blog because next week i will post
pictures of all of them. haha. Okay scriptures for the week: 3 Nephi 21:10, Mormon 7:7,
Mormon 8:22, and Mormon 9:21, 27.

Thanks so much Dad for being proud of me. It really means
a lot. You were/are such a great example to me, so it means a lot to have
to say that. I really wish i would have appreciated you and mom a lot
more before because you guys did so much for me. Love you guys so much!!! and miss you a little too;)

Monday, November 17, 2014

Soooo basically, as some
or most of you may heard, i had a pretty rough week this week...I came down
with Dengue Fever so from Sunday through Wednesday i had a temperature over 100
and it even got up to 104 at one point. For those four days i was unable
to do anything but lay in bed. On Thursday and Friday i started feeling a
little bit better so i was at least able to move a little bit but i still had a
lot of body pains. So i was either in the apartment, clinic or hospital
for the entire time this week. So we didn't get to teach anybody
unfortunately. On Saturday and Sunday we had District Conference (Stake
conference basically) so that was good but i had to go without wearing socks
because i got super bad rashes on my legs haha. President Berrett was
pretty impressed though that i made it. Today i am just starting to get
my energy back so this week should be better.

Simmy and John did come to District
Conference which was really good and are wanting to come to church next week
again so we are really excited about them. They are great. Cedrick
and Frank are really helpful because they are giving them fellowship and
friendship which is key. Either Elder Bunga or i should be transferred
out of this area soon within the next week or two so we are really hoping that
they make enough progress to accept the baptismal invitation this week! We are
getting pretty excited about them so hopefully they can be our baptism before
our companionship ends.

So this week wasn't too good. The RSS is against
people that convert to christianity. so basically against christians, but
i was a bigger target because i am white. So we had interviews with
President Berrett this week and he said he was thinking about transferring me
out of this area so that i wouldn't be a target. So we will see what
happens. So only in Bangalore we don't wear tags and yes that is for
safety. We don't have a ton of other things but just if that happens to
act and answer truthfully and confidently and if it seems to be a problem, then
just offer to go to the police station with them because they have no authority
anyway. So before our personal interviews with the mission president we
had companionship interviews so when Elder Bunga and I went in together, we found out
that we are leading the mission in the three effort stats: member present
lessons, recent convert/less active lessons, and new investigators. So he
was very proud of us for our hard work. Now we just need to try and turn
all of that into baptisms which we are working very hard to do.

As far as Christmas requests i don't really have any! Just
be creative i guess;) But we did get the package this week so thank you so much
mom! You are the best.

Yeah Dad i felt terrible this week. It would
definitely have been nice to have my family PA to know what to do haha. I
guess i will have to deal without eem for another 20.5 months though
haha. I will read that scripture for sure this week. I don't have
one this week for you unfortunately so i will give you two next week.
Wow! so Mountain View is in the state championship?! Thats awesome! Go
Mavs! College football is sounding pretty crazy this year! Same with
NBA. Toronto will be good, not sure about Brooklyn. Washington is
good and KD's next destination haha. Cleveland is second huh? and UTAH?!
wow. Crazy NBA. Giants must be bad i guess. and OKC without
their studs. Hopefully they come back soon so that they can get back into
the playoff pic. How is Jabari doing in Milwaukee?

Brother Heyborne is a great teacher it sounds like.
The Book of Mormon is so awesome. It is incredible how much it can teach
us and give us. How is my Tyler bro doing? i miss that guy so much.
make sure you give him plenty of hugs and kisses from me okay?

So yeah because of that Dengue Fever i had a pretty rough
week mentally this week, so it was good to read these emails from you guys! Just
please continue to pray for me as i need your help so much in India! Thank you
for your many prayers and your great love and support. i miss you guys so
much. Love you guys! Until Next Week...

Your son called me this week because he was not feeling
well.He had a fever and nausea.when he was not better a few days later he
had an appointment at a clinic that is one of our approved facilities.The doctor ordered some blood tests
done.Elder Ball learned the next day
that he had Dengue Fever.It is caused
from a mosquito bite.Because his fever
responds well to Tylenol and his blood platelet count is normal they have not
hospitalized him.He does need to go in
every day for blood work to watch for complications.He said that he was feeling a little better
today.He did not have much fever and
the anti-nausea medicine helped him to be able to eat.Dengue Fever does cause a lot of head and
muscle pain.There is not much they can
give to cure it but only to treat the symptoms.Sunday was the first day he was sick and the worst part usually lasts
about a week.Hopefully after this
weekend he should be feeling better and getting back to normal.

I will let you know if anything changes.He is in relatively good spirits considering
the circumstances.He is anxious to get
back to work.We appreciate Elder Ball
and the good spirit he brings to our mission.

Thank you for sharing your son with us.

Sister Berrett 11/16/14Dear Brother and Sister Ball,

I can understand your concern about your son.He is doing much better.I was surprised to see him at the Saturday
Evening session of District Conference last night.He said he was feeling better.He was also at conference this morning and
looked like he was back to his normal self.

Monday, November 10, 2014

So my letter this week will probably be fairly short
unfortunately. I will explain why later. So overall this week was
actually pretty good. We visited lots of members again and one of our
tasks given to us by the Branch President was to start taking the huge copy
Book of Mormons to members to give to them to start their challenge. So
we did that this week. The members are really trusting us a lot more and
more willing to come to appointments with us which is key because we are
supposed to try and have a member present at every single lesson.

Oh and
so about Elder Bunga, we thought it would be another six weeks but our zone
leaders told us this week that it will only be two weeks more because that is
when the other new missionaries will be coming so Bunga will go somewhere else
and i will probably be training a new missionary. So i was a little
bummed about it but i think Bunga was wanting a change because he has been in
this area for 6 months. So we are really hoping and praying to get one
baptism before our companionship ends. So this weeks i was struggling
with my confidence as a teacher and was doubting if i was teaching powerfully
enough or if I was adequate enough of a teacher. So this week on Saturday,
Elder Bunga answered my prayers and told me that i teach so good and that when
i teach the Spirit is so strong there, and he wishes that he could always just
listen to me teach because i do it so well. I am not meaning to sound at
all prideful about this because it was actually really humbling because i was
having a hard time with that confidence. Elder Bunga is so dang
awesome. I sure will miss him. He might come to BYU for school
after his mission so i told him that if he does we will hang out and go see my
family and then he said once i come back to India that i could stay with him no
problem:)

Yona is still making up excuses not to see him so i think we are going to
lay off of him for a little while. we haven't been able to get a hold of
Chris lately either. As far as Raju and Yogita from Nelamangala goes,
they were busy this week so we are planning to visit them this week. We
visited John and Simmy with Cedrick and Frank again and it was such a good
meeting. They had lots of really good questions. They speak and
understand english but it was great have frank and cedrick there because they
can answer them in french. They are so interested and Simmy already
accepted the Book of Mormon as the word of god. We think Simmy could be
our baptismal candidate. He and John also came to church on sunday and
really liked it and had lots of questions afterwords. So i don't have my
journal with me today so this all i can remember about this week. The
reason i don't have it is very interesting as i have a very interesting last
few days.

So saturday evening were headed to give something to the
Ramamurthy nagar elders and as we were waiting for a bus, this guy and group of
guys (most drunk) came up to elder bunga and asked his name and then came over to
ask me mine. So this guy comes up to me and was trying to take my picture
and and video so i told him no about taking that picture. So i was
drinking juice and he ripped the juice from my hand and threw it on the ground and
asked my name so i told him. Then elder bunga came over and this guy
began to ask me so many questions about where i live, where i am from, if i
have a visa, what i was doing here, etc. So bunga told him we are
students and so the guy said that Sunday morning at 9:30 or 10 they will find
out if we really are students and that they had something nice for us. It
turns out this guy is a head of the RSS which a Hindu extremist group. So
that was super scary so we spent the night at the other elders apartment.
Apparently everything will be fine but i was very nervous about this. So
that night i only slept for 10 minutes and it was because i came down with a
bad fever. so i have been really sick for the past two days. so it
has been a really rough past couple days and nights.

Answers: so the address you sent the package to was one to
use. i still haven't gotten any birthday cards except from you nor have i
got anything from grandpa still. So about the christmas package...peanut
butter would be good;) haha but actually i don't really know for sure what i
need. i will think about it this week and tell you next week okay?
Best thing this week was John and Simmy's interest and coming to the church and
worst was the RSS incident and getting really sick. Best thing i ate was
probably the cream bun snack i told you about. I hadn't had them in a
while so tasted great to have them again. And i can't really think of
something funny i did. It is probably in journal which i don't have so im
really sorry about the not so good email this week.

Sounds like the thunder are terrible right now...did you
find out how long westbrook is out? Perkins should be stepping up more that is
for sure haha. So the Jazz beat the Cavs good huh? how are the cavs? who
is impressive in the NBA so far. That's awesome about the football
team!

Once again sorry for the crap email this week. I am
still not feeling well so i tried to make this email quick enough without
leaving you hanging.

Scripture of the week: James 1:22

Well hope you all are doing well and will have a wonderful
week this week

And first of all...Happy Birthday to the best mom in the world!
This is a day late because of transfers, but if there weren't transfers i would
have said happy birthday on time! Hope your day was great mommy:)

So my week this week was pretty dang good again.
Except i randomly came down with a cold for a couple days which was really
weird.

But this week we did member visits and taught investigators
as usual. So those two investigators we inherited from the Ramamurthy
Nagar elders names are Raju and Yogita. So we planned to go and visit
them and meet them and teach them. So we decided to ask Cedrick if he
could go with us so he took us along with a member named Arun in his car.
Those are the car pictures i uploaded. So we traveled and traveled and
traveled and these people live clear out of our way haha. It took us two
hours to get there and the place isn't even in Bangalore. It is in a town
called Nelamangala. But apparently it is still in our area. So we
got there and they are soooo good. They are very interested and were very
receptive and willing to learn. They only have one problem....Getting to
church every sunday. So they told us they will come twice a month. First
and last sunday of every month. Which is kind of a bummer because in
order to be baptized, investigators have to attend three sacrament meetings in
a row. So we will probably talk to President Berrett about this one and
see if we can make an exception because they live so far away from the
church. But it was a good time and we taught them about the Book of
Mormon and challenged them to read it so this week we will see if followed
through with their commitment. And Cedrick really opened up to us.
Cedrick has always kind of been a quiet guy but with us this day, he really
opened up and said he is always free so to call him and let him know when he
can come with us. So we took him a few times out this week and he is so
awesome and has such a strong testimony and we are so glad that he opened up to
us. We also taught his friend Stephen again this week and Stephen is i
think making very slow but very sure progress.

We saw Sister Amudha and her daughter Jaromia last Monday
and Jaromia had her baby so Vincent David is now a grandpa. The baby is
so dang cute so i uploaded some pics and thought mom would love newborn baby
pics:) We are going to reinvite sister Amudha to be baptized this week to
see if she is still willing and ready. November 1 was a member named Sister Barathi's birthday and
they are such a nice family to us so they invited us over to celebrate her
birthday so that is whose b-day it is in the pictures.

On Sunday we had a really productive day. So after
church we asked Cedrick if he could come with us to Kothanur and he said yes
and we also brought another African named Frank (from Ivory Coast) with
us. We went and taught Logo and he is really good and wants to come to
church but his brother Yona hasn't been waking up to come to church so Logo
hasn't been able to come with is a bummer. But then we taught Grace and
Nique (Pictured with Elder Bunga and I). We taught them about prophets
and had a really good discussion. Toward the end it kind of turned into a
bible bash because Frank (who is a return missionary of two years) was pulling
out scriptures left and right and Grace and Nique were having a hard time
accepting them even though they were in the bible. But nevertheless, the
discussion was still pretty good and they were willing to let us come teach
them again so i guess that is good. Then we went and taught Simmy and
John and they have still been busy with exams so they haven't started reading
the BoM yet, but they promised us that they will start on Thursday after exams
and then that they would come to church on Sunday.

So we have really been gaining the trust of the members and
really trying to become close with them so they are more willing to help us so
that has been good. The Pidugu's are such a great family and they are so
nice to us and feed us every once in a while which is nice;) We went last
night to brother Vasanth's house for family home evening (pictured). It
was a really good family home evening. Our Branch President got an
assignment in Chennai for his job so it is a bummer that he can only come to
church twice a month so we are wondering if we will get a new Branch Presidency
soon.

So a good week for us and on to transfer news: so Elder
Bunga and i will be together for at least another 6 weeks! We are very excited
about that and really hoping we can get a baptism before our companionship
ends. The assistants said that they are keeping us together because we
are doing so well together. So that is really good. The picture
with all the missionaries is our district. It was our last meeting with
Elder Kesterson as our District Leader because he is going home on
Thursday. The elders are Martinez, and Mulampaka.

I'm glad you guys had a great week as well. Answers: Highlight of the week was probably not getting a
transfer call and finding out Elder Bunga and I are still a team because we are
doing so well. Lowlight: probably getting a cold or having zero
investigators at church. New about the culture is that it is bad to yawn at
someones house or while talking to them because that means you think they are
boring. Really surprising was not getting a transfer call because it
isn't that common that comps stay together for longer than three months
especially comps that are in the training program. Oh and no i didn't get
grandpa's letter...

Dad: OkC will really have a hard time without KD and
Westbrook....NFL seems weird this year though...Cowboys, cardinals lions all
doing good...weird. Sounds like Kole is having quite the year! tell him i
say "Atta boi" The college football top ten is weird too!
Mississippit St.?! Mississippi?! TCU?! what the heck is going on?! haha.
Thanks for the great SC update. It was awesome. So it is also
beginning to cool down a bit here but by cool down i mean to 70s and 80s
haha. Bunga thinks it is cold but i think it is perfect haha.
Thanks for the reminder about my call. I read it a few times since i have
been out but probably could read it more. So yes i am starting to gain
back some of my weight. And getting a little bit of a rice belly at times
haha. Don't get too trunky Dad;) It's okay to get a little trunky but
pretend you still have 21 months left like me haha. You're awesome pops
and a great example to me. Thanks for words of advice.

So scripture of the week: Alma 26:11-12, Alma 37:46 Well I love you all and hope you all have a wonderful week!
Thanks for you love support and prayers.